Open source Doom 3 gets ported to Android

Doom 3 is a science fiction horror video game made by id Software, that was released in 2004 for Windows. It’s been id Software’s most successful game so far, selling over 3.5 million copies. Later it was adapted to the Linux platform, then Mac OS X, and after that, to the Xbox and Xbox360 consoles.

After this whole success, id Software decided to open source Doom 3 last year, so now anyone can try and port it to any platform they want. That’s how we’re now able to see developers trying to port Doom 3 to Android. The ported game is still in pre-alpha stage, so don’t expect it to work very well. Plus, for a 2004 game I think you need a more recent GPU and CPU than the ones in the Desire HD (Qualcomm S2/Adreno 205), if you want it to work smoothly.

In the video demo, the game takes a whole two minutes to load, and there aren’t any other characters inside the game for this specific demo, only the player in an empty room. Will it work much better on newer hardware and once it’s in a finished state? It’s certainly possible. The game is eight years old, but mobile devices already handle the graphics of seven year old PC games or even more recent ones. Plus, the new chips coming out should beat current-gen consoles in performance, so the future looks promising for a game like Doom 3 on mobile devices.